Levon’s Divine Underground (Armenia)

At 44 years of age, presumably after many years of marriage, Levon Arakelyan’s wife, Tosya, requested that he build a potato cellar under their home. You’d think that since they’d made it long enough without one, they’d just finish the race as is. But no. While solidly in the second half of his life, Levon was charged with the task of moving tons of earth to make storage space for dirt apples, at the behest of his wife and local warlord, Tosya. Over the course of 23 years, Levon used only hand tools to create a system of caves, stairs, halls, twists, and rooms reaching 70 feet underground – any architecture he thought would protect him from her. Levon passed at the age of 67, leaving behind Tosya, who now sadistically runs a museum displaying his efforts like a Stephen King character. It remains unclear if a cellar was ever built, or if there was any legitimate way for me to shoehorn “Tosya outta window” into this essay.